Quintet of Brad Ellenberg and his jazzmen give back to Westwood

Friday

Nov 4, 2011 at 12:01 AMNov 4, 2011 at 4:01 AM

The Brad Ellenberg Quintet, led by Westwood’s own Brad Ellenberg, gave a free performance of original and traditional jazz tunes for an enthusiastic crowd at the Islington Community Center last month, thanks to a grant from the Westwood Cultural Council.

Jasmine Lywen-Dill/Westwood Press correspondent

The Brad Ellenberg Quintet, led by Westwood’s own Brad Ellenberg, gave a free performance of original and traditional jazz tunes for an enthusiastic crowd at the Islington Community Center last month, thanks to a grant from the Westwood Cultural Council.

Brad, who plays the guitar, said the band has been together in different forms since 1993.

They started as a trio. Brad met his bass player, Michael Ball, when they were both attending the New England Conservatory. Brad was there to get his master’s in jazz composition.

He started out wanting a smaller sound, but the band just kept growing. These days, the band also includes Gary Bohan on trumpet, Corey Lareau on saxophone, clarinet and flute, and Grant Smith on drums.

Their 2009 release, Rendezvous, is the band’s only album together. While it is strongly a jazz album with no vocals, there are clearly different genres that influenced Brad while he was writing the songs.

When listening to jazz, one would never assume there would also be Latin, rock and blues influences, but all these sounds are on Rendezvous. Brad said he grew up with bands like the Allman Brothers, Traffic, and Eric Clapton.

One track on the album is titled, "Images of Louis," inspired from a biography on Louis Armstrong. It sounds like a 1920s ode to the late great jazz trumpeter, with snare drums and a trumpet bringing the listener back in time.

"I really don’t like to shut myself off to any type of music," Brad said. "I’ll try to take an influence wherever I can." He further explained this idea by comparing chord changes to different colors, and that there’s a different color sound for every chord and key.

"A lot of jazz song writing takes a journey through a variety of those," he said.
Brad believes he got into jazz as a result of a natural progression. It spoke to him personally.

"There’s a certain depth and complexity to jazz music or the repertoire," he said. "There’s so much variety within it."

Another big part of being a jazz band is improvisation. When I asked Brad if they ever free form at a show, he quickly replied, "All the time."

Jazz is like going through the different rooms of a house, he said, where the construction is always the same, but the decorations of the rooms are different.

Every song has improvisation, but Brad made it clear the quintet is not improvising with nothing on the spot. They always have the structure of the song to work from.

"The beauty of jazz is it’s an extremely spontaneous expression," he said.

The Quintet performs at a lot of corporate and private events, such as bar mitzvahs, weddings, and social events. All the members of the band are working musicians and play with different groups as well.

Brad is a guitar teacher at Waltham Middle School and High School. He also co-directs the student council at the middle school and helps coach some of his son’s sports teams. The benefit of being a teacher, he said, is being done with work around 4 p.m. so he can focus the rest of the day on his music.

Last month, the Quintet played a free concert at the Islington Community Center, funded by a $600 grant from the Westwood Cultural Council. About 50 people turned out for the event that Sunday.

Massachusetts appropriates funds to every city and town’s cultural council. In 2011, the Westwood Cultural Council awarded the maximum, $1,000, to groups organizing three events: Westwood Chinese Cultural night, an Indian Cultural Evening, and a Meet the Musicians night at Downey Elementary School.

The Quintet’s grant of $600 was the second highest amount awarded.

Brad said he would apply for another grant from the cultural council this year. The guidelines are simple: the money needs to be used for something that many people in the community can partake in. If they got it again, he said, they would probably use it for another free concert.
The band is also working on another album, which they hope to get out some time next year.

"We’re local musicians," he said, "but it’s music for the passion of that music, for what it brings out emotionally and spiritually."